SINGAPORE, 6 August 2024: Sri Lanka’s eVisa portal, run by VSC Global, will be offline for at least a week due to a Supreme Court injunction following a petition by a group of MPs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As a result of the Supreme Court order, the platform switched off at 1700 on Friday, 2 August, leaving travellers with just two options: Apply for visas at the nearest embassy before travelling to Sri Lanka or queue for a visa-on-arrival at the first point of entry in the country, usually Colombo Bandaranaike International Airport.<\/p>\n\n\n
\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n
Officially called an Electronic Travel Authorization, the eVisa process was awarded to VSC Global last April when it won the tender following Cabinet approval. A group of MPS is now challenging the legality.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The adoption of an exclusive eVisa service was effective on 17 April when the Department of Immigration announced:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“With effect from 17 April 2024, all tourist and business travellers to Sri Lanka must have an eVisa to enter Sri Lanka. Please visit https:\/\/www.srilankaevisa.lk for more information.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Supreme Court ruling suspended the website service and forced the government to revert to the pre-17 April system used for issuing tourist visas.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Travel trade sources in the Sri Lankan capital, Colombo, said the ETA system will remain suspended for at least a week while the court investigates the complaint and issues a ruling. If it rules in favour of the MPs’ petition VSC Global’s portal processing Sri Lankan eVisas could remain offline for much longer and may go back to the tender bidding process.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sri Lanka grants tourists a 30-day visa costing USD50 with the option to extend in the country for another 30 days. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sri Lanka Association of Inbound Tour Operators posted a statement on its Facebook page summarising the developments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2022 “All eVisa applications that remain pending as of 2 August will receive a refund; application number and details need to be shared at travel.partner@srilankaevisa.lk<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2022 Currently, there is no platform for issuing an eVisa online to tourists coming to Sri Lanka.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2022 All tourists with no visa must apply for a visa-on-arrival until the former Electronic Travel Authorisation (ETA) system is re-established.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u2022 We anticipate that the ETA system will be up and running within the next week.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
SINGAPORE, 6 August 2024: Sri Lanka’s eVisa portal, run by VSC Global, will be offline for at least a week due to a Supreme Court injunction following a petition by a group of MPs. As a result of the Supreme Court order, the platform switched off at 1700 on Friday, 2 August, leaving travellers with […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":228132,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4257,4170],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-240078","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-asia-pacific","8":"category-destinations"},"yoast_head":"\n
Sri Lankan court suspends eVisa service - TTR Weekly<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.ttrweekly.com\/site\/2024\/08\/sri-lankan-court-suspends-evisa-service\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Sri Lankan court suspends eVisa service - TTR Weekly\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"SINGAPORE, 6 August 2024: Sri Lanka’s eVisa portal, run by VSC Global, will be offline for at least a week due to a Supreme Court injunction following a petition by a group of MPs. As a result of the Supreme Court order, the platform switched off at 1700 on Friday, 2 August, leaving travellers with […]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.ttrweekly.com\/site\/2024\/08\/sri-lankan-court-suspends-evisa-service\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"TTR Weekly\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/web.facebook.com\/TTRweekly\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2024-08-05T23:15:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.ttrweekly.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/Sri-Lanka-train.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"976\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"549\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"TTR WEEKLY\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@https:\/\/twitter.com\/ttrweekly\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@ttrweekly\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"TTR WEEKLY\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ttrweekly.com\/site\/2024\/08\/sri-lankan-court-suspends-evisa-service\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ttrweekly.com\/site\/2024\/08\/sri-lankan-court-suspends-evisa-service\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"TTR WEEKLY\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ttrweekly.com\/site\/#\/schema\/person\/0969996ed7cd03b896cfdbc063a1dd93\"},\"headline\":\"Sri Lankan court suspends eVisa service\",\"datePublished\":\"2024-08-05T23:15:00+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ttrweekly.com\/site\/2024\/08\/sri-lankan-court-suspends-evisa-service\/\"},\"wordCount\":374,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ttrweekly.com\/site\/#organization\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ttrweekly.com\/site\/2024\/08\/sri-lankan-court-suspends-evisa-service\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.ttrweekly.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/Sri-Lanka-train.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"ASIA PACIFIC\",\"DESTINATIONS\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.ttrweekly.com\/site\/2024\/08\/sri-lankan-court-suspends-evisa-service\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ttrweekly.com\/site\/2024\/08\/sri-lankan-court-suspends-evisa-service\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.ttrweekly.com\/site\/2024\/08\/sri-lankan-court-suspends-evisa-service\/\",\"name\":\"Sri Lankan court suspends eVisa service - TTR Weekly\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ttrweekly.com\/site\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ttrweekly.com\/site\/2024\/08\/sri-lankan-court-suspends-evisa-service\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ttrweekly.com\/site\/2024\/08\/sri-lankan-court-suspends-evisa-service\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.ttrweekly.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/Sri-Lanka-train.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2024-08-05T23:15:00+00:00\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ttrweekly.com\/site\/2024\/08\/sri-lankan-court-suspends-evisa-service\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.ttrweekly.com\/site\/2024\/08\/sri-lankan-court-suspends-evisa-service\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ttrweekly.com\/site\/2024\/08\/sri-lankan-court-suspends-evisa-service\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.ttrweekly.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/Sri-Lanka-train.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.ttrweekly.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/Sri-Lanka-train.jpg\",\"width\":976,\"height\":549},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ttrweekly.com\/site\/2024\/08\/sri-lankan-court-suspends-evisa-service\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.ttrweekly.com\/site\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Sri Lankan court suspends eVisa service\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ttrweekly.com\/site\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.ttrweekly.com\/site\/\",\"name\":\"TTR Weekly\",\"description\":\"News for Southeast Asia's travel planners. Latest news, travel news, B2B news, Southeast Asia, Thailand, Vietnam, Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines and Brunei.\",\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ttrweekly.com\/site\/#organization\"},\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.ttrweekly.com\/site\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Organization\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ttrweekly.com\/site\/#organization\",\"name\":\"ttrweekly\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.ttrweekly.com\/site\/\",\"logo\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ttrweekly.com\/site\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.ttrweekly.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/TTRW-272-01.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.ttrweekly.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/TTRW-272-01.png\",\"width\":1133,\"height\":375,\"caption\":\"ttrweekly\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ttrweekly.com\/site\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/\"},\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/web.facebook.com\/TTRweekly\/\",\"https:\/\/x.com\/ttrweekly\"]},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.ttrweekly.com\/site\/#\/schema\/person\/0969996ed7cd03b896cfdbc063a1dd93\",\"name\":\"TTR WEEKLY\",\"sameAs\":[\"https:\/\/www.ttrweekly.com\",\"https:\/\/x.com\/https:\/\/twitter.com\/ttrweekly\"],\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.ttrweekly.com\/site\/author\/e-newswire\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Sri Lankan court suspends eVisa service - TTR Weekly","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.ttrweekly.com\/site\/2024\/08\/sri-lankan-court-suspends-evisa-service\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Sri Lankan court suspends eVisa service - TTR Weekly","og_description":"SINGAPORE, 6 August 2024: Sri Lanka’s eVisa portal, run by VSC Global, will be offline for at least a week due to a Supreme Court injunction following a petition by a group of MPs. As a result of the Supreme Court order, the platform switched off at 1700 on Friday, 2 August, leaving travellers with […]","og_url":"https:\/\/www.ttrweekly.com\/site\/2024\/08\/sri-lankan-court-suspends-evisa-service\/","og_site_name":"TTR Weekly","article_publisher":"https:\/\/web.facebook.com\/TTRweekly\/","article_published_time":"2024-08-05T23:15:00+00:00","og_image":[{"width":976,"height":549,"url":"https:\/\/www.ttrweekly.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/Sri-Lanka-train.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"TTR WEEKLY","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@https:\/\/twitter.com\/ttrweekly","twitter_site":"@ttrweekly","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"TTR WEEKLY","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.ttrweekly.com\/site\/2024\/08\/sri-lankan-court-suspends-evisa-service\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.ttrweekly.com\/site\/2024\/08\/sri-lankan-court-suspends-evisa-service\/"},"author":{"name":"TTR WEEKLY","@id":"https:\/\/www.ttrweekly.com\/site\/#\/schema\/person\/0969996ed7cd03b896cfdbc063a1dd93"},"headline":"Sri Lankan court suspends eVisa service","datePublished":"2024-08-05T23:15:00+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.ttrweekly.com\/site\/2024\/08\/sri-lankan-court-suspends-evisa-service\/"},"wordCount":374,"commentCount":0,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.ttrweekly.com\/site\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.ttrweekly.com\/site\/2024\/08\/sri-lankan-court-suspends-evisa-service\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.ttrweekly.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/Sri-Lanka-train.jpg","articleSection":["ASIA PACIFIC","DESTINATIONS"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/www.ttrweekly.com\/site\/2024\/08\/sri-lankan-court-suspends-evisa-service\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.ttrweekly.com\/site\/2024\/08\/sri-lankan-court-suspends-evisa-service\/","url":"https:\/\/www.ttrweekly.com\/site\/2024\/08\/sri-lankan-court-suspends-evisa-service\/","name":"Sri Lankan court suspends eVisa service - TTR Weekly","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.ttrweekly.com\/site\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.ttrweekly.com\/site\/2024\/08\/sri-lankan-court-suspends-evisa-service\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.ttrweekly.com\/site\/2024\/08\/sri-lankan-court-suspends-evisa-service\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.ttrweekly.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/Sri-Lanka-train.jpg","datePublished":"2024-08-05T23:15:00+00:00","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.ttrweekly.com\/site\/2024\/08\/sri-lankan-court-suspends-evisa-service\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.ttrweekly.com\/site\/2024\/08\/sri-lankan-court-suspends-evisa-service\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.ttrweekly.com\/site\/2024\/08\/sri-lankan-court-suspends-evisa-service\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.ttrweekly.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/Sri-Lanka-train.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.ttrweekly.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/11\/Sri-Lanka-train.jpg","width":976,"height":549},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.ttrweekly.com\/site\/2024\/08\/sri-lankan-court-suspends-evisa-service\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.ttrweekly.com\/site\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Sri Lankan court suspends eVisa service"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.ttrweekly.com\/site\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.ttrweekly.com\/site\/","name":"TTR Weekly","description":"News for Southeast Asia's travel planners. Latest news, travel news, B2B news, Southeast Asia, Thailand, Vietnam, Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines and Brunei.","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.ttrweekly.com\/site\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.ttrweekly.com\/site\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/www.ttrweekly.com\/site\/#organization","name":"ttrweekly","url":"https:\/\/www.ttrweekly.com\/site\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.ttrweekly.com\/site\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.ttrweekly.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/TTRW-272-01.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.ttrweekly.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/07\/TTRW-272-01.png","width":1133,"height":375,"caption":"ttrweekly"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.ttrweekly.com\/site\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/web.facebook.com\/TTRweekly\/","https:\/\/x.com\/ttrweekly"]},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.ttrweekly.com\/site\/#\/schema\/person\/0969996ed7cd03b896cfdbc063a1dd93","name":"TTR WEEKLY","sameAs":["https:\/\/www.ttrweekly.com","https:\/\/x.com\/https:\/\/twitter.com\/ttrweekly"],"url":"https:\/\/www.ttrweekly.com\/site\/author\/e-newswire\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ttrweekly.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240078","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ttrweekly.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ttrweekly.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ttrweekly.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ttrweekly.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=240078"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.ttrweekly.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240078\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":240112,"href":"https:\/\/www.ttrweekly.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240078\/revisions\/240112"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ttrweekly.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/228132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ttrweekly.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=240078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ttrweekly.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=240078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ttrweekly.com\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=240078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.ttrweekly.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/2-3.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.ttrweekly.com\/site\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/1-2.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"